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Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

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Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#191

Post by gaahrdner »

nujabe wrote: post #190
irvingprime wrote: post #72

What's it like to be old? My boss is younger than I am and is absolutely sure he knows more about my job than I do, even though I've been doing it since before he was born and he never did it at all. People on TV keep trying to sell me stuff like Metamucil, some new kind of cane or similar silly gadget, or a scam investment, none of which I want. My grandkids can't understand why I can't read things they're holding r…

Thank you for your post. I have a question, and I really don't intend to be mean spirited even though it may come across as such. >I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above comment about my boss). Software development (assuming you are are a developer) is a very well paid profession, and has been for many decades. This is the only profession where people who are 4 years out of schoo…

Software development is only a well paid profession fairly recently, and only a very well paid profession if you are lucky.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#192

Post by gaahrdner »

jedberg wrote: post #101

No matter how you live your youth, you will probably regret it when you are older. Unless you inherit so much money that you don't have to ever work in your life. If you spend your youth having fun and enjoying your youth, then when you get to middle age you'll have wished you worked harder and saved more so you could be wealthy and comfortable. If you work your butt off in your youth and have lots of money and succe…

As an American, this is a very American answer, and I wish I could disagree.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#194

Post by tasuki »

ecmascript wrote: post #111
tasty_freeze wrote: post #106

I'm 56, so not that old, but age is increasingly a concern. Confirming what others have said - I am very much in touch with the teenage me and everything between. The days are long and the decades are short, indeed. Health - for me, health it isn't about living a long time, it is living with self sufficiency and minimizing pain. I am not afraid of death, but I am afraid of the years of infirmity which often precedes…

I'm in my thirties right now and I feel a huge sense of urgency already. I hate that life is so short :(

What length of life would you find satisfactory?

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#195

Post by tasuki »

neltnerb wrote: post #157
chadcmulligan wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am very surprised my C (C++) skills seem to be in demand still - even seems to be a bit of a renaissance at the moment.

Why are you surprised? I have to write firmware all the time and everyone still uses C unless they're dedicated to another language for some reason. I can see being into Rust. I haven't had any reason to use it yet.

Memory safety? Isn't that a reason to use Rust over C, that there are some classes of errors one can move from runtime to compile-time?

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#196

Post by nujabe »

gaahrdner wrote: post #191
nujabe wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your post. I have a question, and I really don't intend to be mean spirited even though it may come across as such. >I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above comment about my boss). Software development (assuming you are are a developer) is a very well paid profession, and has been for many decades. This is the only profession where people who are 4 years out of schoo…

Software development is only a well paid profession fairly recently, and only a very well paid profession if you are lucky.

Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo.

Also I would consider a bare six figure salary well paid.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#197

Post by tluyben2 »

gaahrdner wrote: post #191
nujabe wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for your post. I have a question, and I really don't intend to be mean spirited even though it may come across as such. >I don't have enough money to retire but dream of it every day (See the above comment about my boss). Software development (assuming you are are a developer) is a very well paid profession, and has been for many decades. This is the only profession where people who are 4 years out of schoo…

Software development is only a well paid profession fairly recently, and only a very well paid profession if you are lucky.

I have been well paid (in the EU) since the early 90s in software dev.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#198

Post by kilroy123 »

tasuki wrote: post #188
jedberg wrote: post #101

No matter how you live your youth, you will probably regret it when you are older. Unless you inherit so much money that you don't have to ever work in your life. If you spend your youth having fun and enjoying your youth, then when you get to middle age you'll have wished you worked harder and saved more so you could be wealthy and comfortable. If you work your butt off in your youth and have lots of money and succe…

Inheriting money doesn't change things so much: the people I've met who've inherited a lot of money generally felt a bit lost. I'm not quite old yet (everyone would say that, right? I'm 35), and I don't regret my younger self at all: during the past 12 years I worked cumulatively 9 years and had 3 years off inbetween jobs. I managed to save up some money, as well as travel and have time for myself.

So very true. My girlfriends friend is like this, a woman in her mid 40s and she is so incredibly lost and all over the place.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#199

Post by rlonn »

nujabe wrote: post #196
gaahrdner wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Software development is only a well paid profession fairly recently, and only a very well paid profession if you are lucky.

Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo. Also I would consider a bare six figure salary well paid.

>Programmers have been well paid since at least the dot com bubble, that's a conservative 20 years, wouldn't consider that 'fairly recently' imo.

That's because you're not very old yet.

Re: Ask HN: What is it like to be old? What advice would you give to younger people?

#200

Post by rlonn »

AznHisoka wrote: post #139
gautamcgoel wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you please expand on that advice? What should we be paying attention to?

Just don't think about work, startups, money, etc when you are eating dinner with your family, or spending time with them. Harder than it sounds.

I had kids late in life, which I think has some advantages. One is that you've learnt that nothing lasts and it's important to be present in the moment, because it doesn't come back.
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